Advent I: In-breaking

the way a fever breaks
the way you wake up and test the day
             and find it can bear all your hopes 
the way you stretch your fragile hands to the fire
the way numbers hide infinity between them
the way a stream polishes a stone 
the way we carry it home like treasure
the way we move to music 
the way glaciers suddenly free fall 
the way solar flares lash the cosmic dark 
the way a child spots the first bulb
the way a boy laughs forgetting to be cool
the way a doctor stares intently at the wound
              that she readies herself to fix
the way light fissures a cloud

this is the way he came
this is the way
he will come

For the past two years, I've been attending an Anglican church and it's been one of the best things ever. One of the many things I love about it is the liturgy and the rootedness in the church calendar. My family celebrated Advent growing up—we had Advent calendars of both chocolate and Bible stories, lit candled wreaths, and reveled in the anticipation of Christmas. I still love all that, but one thing I have learned to cherish from the Anglican tradition is the long-held practice of using Advent as a time to reflect on waiting and on all that made the incarnation necessary.

“Advent,” writes one of my heroes, Episcopalian priest and theologian Fleming Rutledge, “begins in the dark. Advent is designed to show that the meaning of Christmas is diminished to the vanishing point if we are not willing to take a fearless inventory of the darkness.”

Fearless inventory of the darkness.

Rutledge then recounts the funeral of a little girl starved by a horribly perverted man. She describes the priest at the funeral: “In a voice of intense anger, he said, ‘Is the good Lord deaf?’ That is an Advent question, perhaps the Advent question.”

‘Is the good Lord deaf?’

Advent is all about waiting. In it we remember the waiting that signposted the path to Jesus’ first coming in Bethlehem—the waiting ever since the garden promise that the serpent would be crushed, ever since Abram was told his offspring would bless all the families of the earth, ever since God stopped speaking through the prophets in the 400 years of silence. And it is about the waiting we are currently mired in, as we believe Jesus will come again in power and glory to establish a kingdom of which there will be no end…

Yet those words can feel so insubstantial, unable to shake and wake a heart that has sat in pain and disappointment and struggle for too long. This is why I love the Anglican approach to Advent: it is not afraid to take inventory of the darkness. Without that inventory, the consummation of Christmas just feels fake.

This is why I love Jesus, too. I wouldn't trust him, except that he faced the darkness.

Later Rutledge says this, and it is everything: “If you were to say to me at the end of this sermon that I have not answered the Advent questions, I would have to say you are right. We do not know why God delays so long. We do not know why he so often hides his face. I do not know why so many have to suffer so much with so little apparent meaning. All we know is that there is this rumor, this hope, this expectation, that the Master of the house is coming back. The first Sunday of Advent, as you can tell from the hymns, is not about the first coming of Jesus, incognito in the stable at Bethlehem. It is about the second coming, ‘in glory, to judge the quick and the dead.’ It is about the final breaking in of God upon our darkness. It is about the promise that against all the evidence, there is a God who cares. Where is God? Until he comes again, he is hidden among us, the ‘wounded surgeon,’ the bleeding Victim, the One who hung on a tree accursed for our sake. It is this hiddenness that gives Advent its special character.”

I suppose that's part of where this poem came from, the idea that “until he comes again, he is hidden among us.”

I am trying to train my eyes to look for his second coming—and for evidence of his first. I cannot imagine what his second coming will be like. I barely have enough imagination for hope. But I can, sometimes, see little clues that he did come, that he did break in upon our darkness once, and if he did it once, he will do it again. And not only that, if he did break in once, he is still here. We just need the right kind of sight. And the intermingled heaviness and hope of Advent helps us learn how to see.

(All Fleming Rutledge quotes are from her sermon “Advent Begins in the Dark” in her collection Advent: The Once and Future Coming of Jesus Christ. Don't worry, you'll be hearing more from her through me this Advent [since I know you were deeply apprehensive about that].)

As I’m sure you guessed, each of my poems for the next few weeks will be Advent themed. I'm so looking forward to sharing this season with you.

Also! I would love to hear what lines you would add to this poem—what things do you notice in people and nature and your own heart that make you think “this is a little bit like how I imagine it might be when he comes?” Please feel free to share in the comments. <3

Also also I made an Advent playlist! It's specifically focused on the theme of waiting. It’s called (wait for it): we wait (Advent). This is not a fun, upbeat collection of Christmas classics. I would not recommend using it for Christmas parties. However, I hope it's helpful for reflecting on all that Advent means—and for those who are already neck-deep in the weariness of hopes deferred, may it be a consolation. Please, please give me your recommendations! As you'll see, it's a collection of Advent-specific songs and other random songs that remind me of the spirit of waiting.

In Other Words…

No new books—well, no new book reviews. But I did watch two movies of hilariously different natures:

Four Christmases (2.5 stars) | Oslo (3.5 stars)

Happy Advent, friends. (I think I can still say that, despite everything I've said here. Because it does end happily, and we can’t forget that.) Stay awake.

~ Aberdeen